Lowered Mintage! Only 12,500 Proof Sets - 2016 150th Anniversary Of The Transatlantic Cable

The 2010 and 2011 SE sets and individual SE SDs were available simultaneously - the individual coins did not follow a sell-out of the sets.

I remember debating whether I wanted to order just the individual coin or both the set and single coin.

I think it would be a mistake - and a subject of much derisive debate - if the RCM issued special edition individual coins only after the sell-out of a set that contains it.

Folks here debated for pages about the RCM increasing the number of cardboard boxes for the $20-for-$20 coins after they released a figure for the initial production! I can only imagine the level of negative comments that would ensue if the RCM upped the "limited edition" mintage of an actual coin after the fact.

Since 2012, when the $99 Proof set - Silver Dollar was first released as a secondary type of Proof set (the other, appx $230 and all coins silver) it's interesting to observe the diminishing mintage. Meanwhile the mintage of the higher priced silver Proof Set has remained more or less constant at 20000/25000. While not all sets may have been sell-outs, mintage numbers do indicate how many sets RCM forecasts it may sell.

Look at the numbers fall:

2012 - 40000
2013 - not issued (Silver Dollar included in Specimen Set mintage 20000)
2014 - 30000
2015 - 20000
2016 - 12500

There are actually four 2013 Canadian Arctic Expedition SDs: Proof, Gold-plated Proof, Specimen and Brilliant Uncirculated.

12,500 is still too many. Until the mint reduces numbers to under 5000 for most coins in the 60-140 dollar range, the secondary market values will never surpass the original purchase price and in most cases will remain in the 50% or lower range.